Living Our Dream

Wisconsin Dells

Lake Delton, WI - Events of Monday, July 25, 2011

The Dells of the Wisconsin River, also known as the Wisconsin Dells, is located only a few minutes from where we were staying in Lake Delton. The Wisconsin Dells is a gorge that was formed in the soft sandstone near the end of the last Ice Age. The area where the Dells are located was never covered by glaciers, but the area adjacent to it was. An ice dam backed up water to form a large lake known as Lake Wisconsin. When the waters of Lake Wisconsin eventually broke through the ice dam when the glaciers started to melt, there was a catastrophic flood that cut deep, narrow gorges in the sandstone of the Dells. The photo below is a view of the Dells from the riverwalk in the town of Wisconsin Dells.

The region around the Dells started out as a lumber area. When the railroad came through in 1857 and built a bridge across the Wisconsin River at the Dells, Kilbourne City sprang up near the bridge.

The Dells has been a tourist attraction since the 1850s when tour guides took guests out in rowboats - and the guests were asked to help row. Small paddle-wheel steamboats later replaced rowboats. When the railroad arrived, tourism really began to flourish. Motor launches replaced the steamboats around the end of the 1800s and in the early 1900s.

The name of the town was changed from Kilbourne City to Wisconsin Dells in 1931 to better identify the town with the natural landscape. Today, Wisconsin Dells is a major tourist town with rows of motels, restaurants, go-cart tracks, family-style shows, mini-golf and water parks - both outdoor and indoor. It reminds us a lot of Branson, MO, except Branson has more shows and Wisconsin Dells has more mini-golf courses and water parks. In fact, Wisconsin Dells has so many water parks they are the self-proclaimed "Water Park Capital of the World."

But we didn't go to Wisconsin Dells to play mini-golf or ride water slides - we went to see the sandstone walls and rock formations of the Dells. Since the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources controls most of the land along the Dells, the best way to see the rocks is by boat. Several companies offer different types of tours of the Dells. There are duck tours that conduct part of the tour on land. There are also jet boat tours that offer thrill rides on the river with frequent quick stops and spins that pretty much guarantee you will get wet.

We opted for the more conventional tour boat with a more leisurely pace so we could see the beauty of the rock formations along the way.

The gorge is divided into the Upper and Lower Dells by a hydroelectric dam located right in town. The dam was built in 1909.

Dells Boat Tours offers tours of both the Upper Dells and the Lower Dells. Tours of the Lower Dells last about an hour, but tours of the Upper Dells last two hours and include two stops with short walks to explore some of the rock formations up close. We decided on the tour of the Upper Dells.

A short way up the river, we approached the first rock cliffs as we entered a narrower part of the river through the formation known as the Jaws of the Dells.

Right past the Jaws is Chimney Rock...

...followed by Chief Blackhawk. Can you see his profile?

Most of the way through the Dells, the river is quite narrow, but about 4 miles up the river, it widens out into a lake that was created when the dam was built in town. There were lots of pleasure boats in this area, and there was even someone parasailing.

Off the main river on the eastern side just after the river begins to widen is Witches' Gulch, which is a narrow side canyon. Passengers can disembark and walk up a boardwalk a few hundred yards through the narrow slot canyon. We lagged back to allow the other passengers to get ahead so we could enjoy the cool beauty of the canyon in relative silence.

It was interesting to see how the swirling water had shaped the rock.

About halfway up Witches' Gulch, we began to hear water echoing in the canyon. Under the boardwalk was a small waterfall.

At the end of the canyon there is a consession stand and rest rooms. The walk up the canyon and back took us about 20 minutes, and it took about 10 more minutes to get all the passengers back and on board the boat.

Our next stop was right across the river at Stand Rock. It was a short walk up a small hill to the rock.

H. H. Bennett was a photographer who became famous for photographs he took of the Dells back in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Bennett also invented a stop-action shutter that enabled him to photograph moving subjects. Previous cameras required long exposures, and any movement of the subject caused a blur. Bennett demonstrated his new shutter with a now-famous, 1886 photograph of his son jumping onto Stand Rock from the adjacent ledge.

Today, the jump from the ledge to Stand Rock and back is recreated for cruise passengers by a German shepherd. Actually, there are several dogs who take turns jumping to make sure they are well-rested. The dog was very anxious to show off for the crowd, and we could hear it barking excitedly waiting for the command to go. The photo below shows the dog jumping back from Stand Rock.

After the jump, passengers can walk the rest of the way up the hill (paved, and not all that steep) to see more rock formations, or they can choose to return to the boat if they don't want to walk further. Of course, we did the walk. In the next photo, Paul is exploring a small tunnel through one of the rocks along the way.

At the top of the hill, there was a scenic view of the river. The rock formation in the foreground is called Demons Anvil.

Toadstool Rock has several pillars holding it up.

The edges of Visor Ledge are so straight, they look like they were cut with a masonry saw.

From the dock at the bottom of the hill we could see the entrance to Witches' Gulch (the dark area just to the right of center) across the river with Sunset Cliffs on either side. The cliffs are so named because they catch the red glow of the sunset. The Palisades are in the foreground to the right.

After we got everyone back on board, the boat headed back downriver to the dock. It was a nice day, and there were a lot of boats on the river. We all waved at each other as we passed. We can only imagine how busy it must be on weekends.

We only have a few more days in the Lake Delton area, and we have one more day trip we want to make to Madison. We'll tell you all about it in our next post.

De Soto, WI

De Soto, WI - Events of Friday, July 15 - Monday, July 18, 2011

It was only about a two-hour drive from Osseo to our next destination of Blackhawk Park in De Soto, WI. Blackhawk Park is an Army Corps of Engineers park and campground along the banks of the upper Mississippi River. There are picnic areas, a boat launch, fishing, and a sandy swimming beach in addition to the campground.

The campground has about 70 RV sites with electric-only hookups. About 1/3 of the sites are non-reservable, but since we arrived on a Friday, we made reservations in advance. There is an older section of the campground that is heavily wooded, and a newer section with only a few small trees. We chose the new section for our satellite dish. We think the old section has only 30-amp electric, while the new section has 30/50 amps. Since is was hot and humid when we were there, we were glad we had 50 amps.

The main road is paved, but the roads around the camping loops, the pads and the patios are gravel. The sites at Blackhawk Park are extra long, but they're not as wide as we're used to seeing in a Corps of Engineers campground. But it's a nice campground, especially for the half-price rate of $12 a night with our America the Beautiful Pass.

There were a few empty sites when we first arrived around noon, but most of the sites had reserved tags on them. The place was pretty much filled by late afternoon.

As we said, Blackhawk Park is located on the Mississippi River. There are lakes, ponds and wetlands all along the river; but surprisingly, there were no mosquitoes at Blackhawk Park.

What there are, however, are trains. Two tracks run along the river bank between the highway and Blackhawk Park. Fortunately, the closest crossing is about a mile to a mile and a half away depending on what part of the campground you're in, so the horns aren't real loud, but you can hear the trains rumble past. We must have started to get used to the trains, because by the latter part of our stay, we didn't seem to hear as many. Of course, our air conditioner was running 24 hours a day during the latter part of our stay, too.

There are numerous islands in the river (the new section of the campground is actually located on an island), and there's a long, narrow island that runs along the outer edge of the campground. The second island forms a nice, protected waterway where boaters can tie up their boats right behind the waterfront campsites. The main river channel is beyond the trees to the left in the next photo.

We have been trying to walk after dinner in spite of the heat and humidity. We walked up the road one evening to see the swimming beach. Not surprisingly (the temperature was 95º and the humidity was 70% at 7:30 in the evening), the beach was fairly crowded.

 

One of the reasons we went to Blackhawk Park was because it is sort of in the middle of nowhere and there isn't much to do. We wanted a break from a lot of sightseeing to just chill out (poor choice of words given the temperatures) at a nice Corps of Engineers campground. However, we can't sit still too long, and we did find a Victorian mansion called Villa Louis we wanted to see about 30 miles south of Blackhawk Park in Prairie du Chien (pronounced doo sheen), WI.

Prairie du Chien was named by French explorers, and the name means "Dog's prairie." The name came from the chief of the Native Americans living there whose name meant "Dog." Prairie du Chien is a large, open prairie located just to the north of the confluence of the Wisconsin and Mississippi Rivers, and it became an important center for fur trade from the mid 1700s to the mid 1800s.

In 1826, Hercules L. Dousman, who was a prominent fur trader working on Mackinac Island, was sent by the American Fur Company to the frontier town of Prairie du Chien to assist the company's local representative, Joseph Rolette.

In the early 1840s, Hercules Dousman bought land near Prairie du Chien on an island in the Mississippi River at the site of Fort Crawford. We'll have more about Fort Crawford later. He built a large, two-story brick home on an old Indian mound on the island. The home became known as the "House on the Mound."

In 1842, Joseph Rolette died; and in 1844, Hercules married Rolette's widow, Jane. Hercules and Jane had one son they named Hercules Louis. The son went by the name of Louis, Louie or H. Louis Dousman, and was never known as Hercules or Junior. It was Louis who built the house that stands on the site today that came to be known as Villa Louis.

Guided tours of the mansion start on the hour. We arrived at 10:30, so we walked over to check out the fur trade museum located near the visitor center. This building was a fur warehouse and trading post built in 1851 by a trader by the name of B. W. Brisbois when an earlier log structure burned. Fur traders brought goods to the warehouses to trade to the Indians for furs.

Inside, there are displays of furs and the types of goods that Brisbois would have traded to the Indians and sold to the local settlers.

Hercules Dousman initially made his money in the fur trade. When fur-bearing animals started becomming scarce, he invested in lumber. Then he invested in steamboats that transported the lumber. When railroads began to replace steamboats, he invested in railroads. Hercules Dousman became quite wealthy.

Following the death of Hercules Dousman in 1868, Louis returned to Prairie du Chien and convinced his mother to allow him to tear down the two-story brick home and build a larger, more modern home with indoor plumbing, central heat and electric lighting. The next photo shows the front of the house built by Louis.

Louis didn't stay at Prairie du Chien long. Preferring the excitement of a bigger city, he moved to St. Paul, MN leaving his mother to occupy the estate he built. He married Nina Sturgis, and the couple moved to St. Louis where they had 5 children.

Louis mother died in 1882, and in 1885, Louis decided to move his family to Prairie du Chien so he could establish a stock farm to breed horses. Louis never realized his dream because he died in 1886 of a ruptured appendix at age 37.

As with many historic houses, photography isn't permitted inside. Ninety percent of the furnishings, paintings and decorative items in the house are original. The Dousman family left the estate in 1913, but they continued to own it. They rented it out for use as a boarding school, among other things. Following the death of Louis' wife Nina in 1930, two of the Dousman children began restoring the mansion. In 1950, the site was acquired by the Wisconsin Historical Society which operates it today.

When the family left the home in 1913, most of the furnishings were divided up among the family members. Since the furnishings were out of fashion, some were sold, but most were put into storage. Later, the family was able to turn over furnishings, decorative items, letters, family records and old photographs to the Historical Society. Some items that were sold have been repurchased.

One thing Paul noticed about the house - the availability of fine wood must have been limited in the frontier town of Prairie du Chien because the woodwork at Villa Louis was all pine that was faux finished to look like oak and mahogany. In contrast, the woodwork at the James J. Hill mansion in St. Paul and at Glensheen in Duluth that we visited recently were real wood.

Adjacent to the main house is the office. The original office, which was only one room (the door and window on the first floor to the left) was built by Hercules Dousman. The building was later expanded to include a billiard room to the right on the first floor and class rooms on the second floor. The classrooms became guest rooms following Louis' death because Nina didn't think she could afford private tutors for the children with Louis gone. 

Behind the main house was the ice house (not shown) and the preserve house.

The preserve house had privies for servants, servants' quarters, storage space and a kitchen for canning.

Also behind the main house was the laundry and a kitchen garden.

Louis built a large, two-story stable on the property for his horse farm. There were stalls on the first floor and sleeping quarters for grooms and stable hands on the second floor. Unfortunately, the stable was all but destroyed by a fire in 1911. The WPA reworked the small portion that remained in the 1930s to create a museum, but the museum is now closed because of recent flooding.

Speaking of flooding, flood protection was the reason Hercules built his original two-story brick house on the old mound. Louis raised the mound even higher before he built the current mansion. Although the basement has had water in it during floods, the first floor has never been flooded. You can see the height of the mound in the photo below that shows the front entrance to the mansion.

The mound was also the site of one of the two blockhouses for Fort Crawford. Fort Crawford was built in 1816 to protect the new frontier at Prairie du Chien when the previous fort was captured and later burned by the British during the War of 1812. Hercules Dousman removed the remaining buildings of Fort Crawford when he built his two-story brick home on the site.

When the WPA was working on the site in the 1930s, they uncovered the stone foundations of some of the old Fort Crawford buildings including the foundation of the second blockhouse behind Villa Louis. The WPA reconstructed the second blockhouse on its original site.

We appreciated the opportunity to learn about the history of Villa Louis and of Prairie du Chien. Afterward, we stopped at the Walmart in Prairie du Chien to pick up a few groceries, then made our way back to the motor home. We had another day to relax before heading out to our next stop. There will be a good bit of sightseeing to report on, so stay tuned.

Apostle Islands National Lakeshore

Superior, MN - Events of Friday, July 8, 2011

The Apostle Islands are a group of small islands along the southern shore of Lake Superior near Bayside, WI, which is about 75 miles from Superior. All but two or three of the islands are part of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore.

All the islands are only accessible by boat. Madeline Island, which is the largest island, has a ferry; but it has year-round residents, and it's not part of the national lakeshore. If you want to see any of the islands that are part of the national lakeshore, the only real way to do it is by private boat or by means of the Apostle Island Cruises. Apostle Island Cruises has about half a dozen different cruises that include several sightseeing cruises of the islands and several cruises that stop for the day at specific islands or stop to drop you off on any of several islands for overnight camping.

We decided to take a day trip to Bayfield and take one of the longer sightseeing cruises. The cruise we took was aboard the Island Princess and went all the way out to the farthest island.

Below is a view of Bayfield harbor with the town of Bayfield behind it.

The cruise left Bayfield harbor and began sailing northeast. The captain gave us a history of the islands and a running commentary on what we were seeing.

The islands were the spiritual home of the Chippewa people. A French explorer named the islands for the 12 apostles even though there are 22 islands.

Madeline Island, the largest island, is about 12 miles long and 3.5 miles wide at its widest point. The smallest island, Eagle Island, is only a little over ¼ mile long. The Apostle Islands National Lakeshore was created in 1970.

The sandstone that makes up the islands is called brownstone.

Brownstone was a popular building material in the 1800s, and several of the islands had quarries. When the quarry on one of the islands ceased operations in the late 1800s, they left a stack of cut brownstone blocks on the shore.

We saw numerous boats anchored near many of the islands. There are lots of places where boaters can take their dinghy ashore to hike, or they can just anchor offshore and enjoy the view.

There was, and still is, commercial fishing on Lake Superior. Before steam power, fishing boats were powered by sails or oars. Since it would take a lot of time to get the boats out to where the fish were, the fishermen established fish camps on several of the islands. Other boats would stop by the fish camps every several days to pick up the catch and to drop off ice for the fishermen to use to preserve their catch until the next pickup. The fish camps had bunk houses, a dining hall and storage buildings.

One such camp is on Manitou Island. The camp has been restored by the National Park Service, and they conduct guided tours.

The highlight of the cruise was the sea caves and lighthouse on the far side of Devil's Island, which is the outermost island. The island's name comes from the fact the Native Americans thought the sound of the waves crashing in the caves during storms sounded like evil spirits.

A boater had backed in to explore one of the caves.

The air was cool out on the lake, especially when we were sailing into the wind. We brought jackets, but left them in the car because it felt so warm when we arrived. We knew it would be cool out on the water, but not that cool. There is an enclosed deck below, but we stuck it out on the upper deck to get a better view. Fortunately, the sun was warm and helped counteract the cool air.

Margery enjoyed the sun, too.

After rounding Devil's Island, the cruise started back toward the harbor at Bayfield. We took a different route than we did on the way out and went along the western side of the islands. Rasberry Island has the most picturesque of the 6 or 7 lighthouses in the Apostle Islands.

As we approached Bayfield, we could see some of the many sailboats participating in that day's race of a week-long regatta. A different course is set up each day depending on wind direction and weather conditions. The sailors tried to see who could complete the course in the least amount of time.

Our cruise lasted about 2½ hours, which seemed a little long; but maybe that's just because we decided not to take our jackets, and it turned out to be a little cool. That particular cruise is long because it goes to the caves on Devil's Island, which is about 20 miles out into the lake.

At any rate, we were pretty hungry when we got back even though we took some snacks with us. One of the crew members suggested a restaurant in town called Maggie's, but when we stopped to check their menu, their sandwiches ranged in price from $8 to $12. We decided to pass and tough it out and wait until we got back to the motor home to have something to eat.

After our long day on the lake, we took a day off to relax. Well, actually, it rained so we went to Walmart to restock the larder. The day after that, however, the sun came out, and we did more sightseeing. We'll tell you what we saw in our next post.